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jfruhlinger writes "People are starting to comb through the details of the law enforcement documents made public by LulzSec. Blogger Kevin Fogarty noticed one interesting trend: The cops seem very anxious about iPhones, particularly apps that would allow encounters with police officers to be recorded. Ironically, the cops seem extremely concerned with protecting their own privacy, but the documents encourage police to examine iPhones during the course of interacting with the public to see what apps they have."

Granted this is US and some of it is justified, but in most countries with actual proper police force that is respected by people, sometimes a recorded fairly small error by a police officer can and WILL be blown out of proportion by yellow press.

At my work, I'm responsible for various chunks of municipal infrastructure that carry Big Important Messages such as "We need a doctor right now," "This cop needs help," "This firefighter's in trouble," etc.

When I was hired, I had to sign a fifty-page document that agrees to the following. The cameras pick me up when I get within 100 feet of the office, they stay on me every minute of every day and the video is archived for years. I agree to audio recordings at any time. My ID badge is trackable and my movements recorded. While I am acting as a representative and employee of this company, all communications of any kind are company property. I have no expectations of privacy at all while I am acting on behalf of the company. All phone calls -- cell, landline and voip -- are recorded. Every keystroke is logged. All emails and IMs are stored. For the 9-12 hours a day that I am doing my job, there is no such thing as a "personal" conversation.

If I make a mistake of any kind -- whether it had consequences or not -- the company is within their rights to fire me on the spot without recourse. I have agreed to mediation, meaning I cannot take my employer to court and I will lose any disagreements. If I make a mistake anyone notices, the company will cheerfully feed me to the customer's lawyers.

All of this because my actions carry a risk of liability for the company and a theoretical risk to human life.

Why on Earth shouldn't someone who carries live ammunition be held to at least the same standard? If Seal Team Six can do their jobs on camera with a live mike, why can't local law enforcement?

And by the way, that "Slut Walk" comment came from a Toronto police officer who implied that a woman deserved to be raped because she dressed like a slut. [msn.com]

A Toronto police officer who told a gathering of university students that women could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like "sluts" has issued an apology.

Mark Pugash, director of communications for the Toronto Police Service, said the officer would send a written letter of apology to faculty and students at York University for inappropriate comments made at the university's Osgoode Hall Law School.

The officer in question sent a written apology to the school later on Thursday.

Pugash said the officer had also been disciplined internally.

The comments were reportedly made during a campus safety meeting on Jan. 24.

Speaking as a brother, a husband and a father of daughters, the boy that made that comment has no business being allowed out on his own, let alone wearing a badge.

I don't care if a woman is a professional crack whore, a rape victim deserves your utmost sympathy, respect and compassion. You treat both the victims and the topic at large as if God and Mary Magdalene were personally going to hold you accountable for absolutely everything.

If you can't understand that, you have no business being in mixed company, let alone mine. I hope to God you don't share a uniform with anyone in my family.

That "Don't dress like a slut" comment came right out of the bad old days of rape legal defense. Defense attorneys used to work two arguments:

1. Every woman consents to be raped. "You cannot thread a moving needle," was quoted in every courtroom, and to some extent still is. She wouldn't have been raped if she had really objected to it. She wasn't resisting. If it really was so terrible, a good woman would have made him kill her first.

2. Even if she didn't consent to be raped, she provoked it. She came on t

Sorry but this is a little retarded. If you leave your front door wide open when you leave for work there is a much better chance that when you come home your place will be ransacked. Its it right you got robbed no not at all but I bet when the thief was looking for a place to hit it was the house with the wide open door that got his attention. When you dress slutty your drawing a lot of sexual attention to yourself. Which in turn raises the risk of unwanted sexual attention. If the cop said to wear re

They get free admission and cheaper drinks because they have a hole instead of a pole? That's pretty much the kind of unfair treatment that feminists have been crusading against for a generation, but the one time it works out in their favor they have nothing to say...

No, he advocatesa. The right to cross the street while wearing nice clothes.b. The right to expect that if you are dressed in nice clothes, those drunks will not take you up the back alley in 2 ways.

The point that both you and the police officer in Toronto seem not to have understood is that wearing nice clothes does *not* make you a more valid target for being raped. There is nothing to do with reasonable caution here. Saying "you can't wear a skirt shorter than your knees, and you can't wear anything th

Essentially every Nordic country? That's Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland? I would also argue the same for Benelux countries, but they had a bit of a mess with immigration lately, so I couldn't fully bet on it anymore.

Yeah, that is the part I do not get about the power to arrest someone for recording the police.
They are in a public place, performing a public service act. It is no different the recording any other public service. Checks and balances my friends.
Has the USA really become China? Are we, in fact, in a police state now?
None of this bodes well for our citizens, and in the end, the government will lose.

They (law enforcement) REALLY, REALLY HATE IT when the get caught on tape (so to speak) committing murder, beating the helpless, framing citizens, violating the "laws" they are sworn to uphold, yup it pisses them off!

Just a little "for instance" in San Jose, CA some year back two burly young 200lb plus officers wearing body armor responded to a "disturbance" at the home of a 4' 10" tall 88lb woman who it turned out had psychological issues, she had not taken her medications and was panicking because her child had become locked in the bathroom, she had been using an Asian-style vegetable peeler to try to pry open the door, when the aforesaid burlies saw the peeler they "thought it was a cleaver" and as we know two large men are no match for a distraught 89 pound woman! The officers, "fearing for their lives" opened fire and shot the lady many, many times (cops NEVER shoot to wound or disable) at point blank range!

IMHO, these men are COWARDS, SOCIOPATHS AND MURDERERS, but of course they were rewarded with paid leave and a pat on the back!

I want to make it clear I am replying ONLY to this comment, not anything else in the parent.

Shooting to wound or disable would be admitting that the use of deadly force was not necessary. Shooting is supposed to be justified on those grounds.

Second, "shooting to wound" would become a less-than-deadly force option, which means it would be justified in more cases. You'd have more officer-involved shootings, not less. And more people would die because "shooting to wound" sometimes results in death.

So no, you do NOT want to teach cops to "shoot to wound" because you'd not be happy with the results.

Even in civilian defense classes, you're never taught to "shoot to wound". At least not by any competent instructor.

If your life is in danger, and it's time to shoot, you shoot for maximum effect. If your life isn't in danger, you don't shoot at all.

You always assume that if you discharge your firearm, there's going to be life threatening injury or death. There's no dancing around the issue. Furthermore, being able to reliably hit center-mass, on a moving target, with adrenaline pumping, in low li

I want to make it clear I am replying ONLY to this comment, not anything else in the parent.

Shooting to wound or disable would be admitting that the use of deadly force was not necessary. Shooting is supposed to be justified on those grounds.

Plus, shooting to wound or disable is HARD! Trying to put a bullet into someone in a deliberate attempt to hit a non-vital area pretty much means that you are quite likely to miss entirely (hands, feet, arms, legs are much smalle

Also, and more to the rest of your post, the reason cops hate recordings is because people like yourself expect that every single one of them is a murderer. Good cops hate to be cast in the same light as the bad ones.

We know there are some cops who do evil things. We know that when they do this, all the other cops will defend them to the point of perjury and beyond. The action of defending a bad cop that way is bad. Therefore, all cops are bad cops.

The thing is, when the rest of us make a "split-second decision that in hindsight might have been the wrong one", and our actions due to that decision are, or even might be, against the law, the police are quite ready to arrest us. If you and a friend were both carrying guns, perfectly legally, and were confronted by a tiny woman with a potato peeler and shot her, you'd almost certainly end up doing time for at least manslaughter (maybe not in Texas).

none, especially not for public servants in public, what part of "public" dont they understand? they are public servants out in public serving the public, no chance of privacy, the sooner they get this trough their head the better behaved the police will be and the less chance of law abiding citizens being brutalized...

I used to install DVR systems in cop cars. One of the options was a pre-record, so when video starts recording it actually includes up to 3 minutes prior. When an agency decided to turn this option all the cops went crazy (literally screaming at people about it, including me) saying it was invasion of privacy. I brought up the question of expectation of privacy when on duty in a patrol car, and that just incited them further. Needless to say cops seem overly concerned with their own privacy and think even when on duty in city owned vehicles there is an expectation of privacy.

"all rights to individual privacy"? No, of course not. No one is arguing that we should have the right to watch police officers or government officials when they're at home with their kids, that's stupid. We're saying there should be no expectation of privacy while they're on the job performing a public service, with public money.

Your scenario is completely different. There are even case law rulings to back up the fact that public servants in public do not have a right to privacy. These states and cities who abuse wiretapping laws to stop people from taking public videos of cops should be punished for gross misuse of the legal system.

I don't see how your hypothetical situations that are actually relevant.

If they were at home with their family, then they'd be entitled to privacy. When they're out on the streets dealing with the public, then no.

It is illegal for your boss to record you while you work because that smacks of slavery. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a policeman sitting at his desk is entitled to the same level of protection. Furthermore, even if it was the case, an average office worker doesn't have the institutional authori

Since when is it illegal for your boss to record you at work?, if it is just about every convenience store, wal-mart and half the restaurants in the world are breaking the law. If I remember right from when I worked at subway, there was a security camera filming the back room, the register (at an angle to monitor for both robbers and to catch cashiers from taking from their own registers, and it was more then common for someone to get fired for sitting around on the job, stealing from the register etc... based on evidence from those cameras.

But just to play the devil's advocate, should a government employee be expected to give up all rights to individual privacy just because they work for the government?

If they're interacting with the public in an official capacity, particularly in the adversarial way cops tend to interact with people in the course of doing their jobs, yes. Sorry, but anyone whose job includes the ability to detain and arrest citizens, go armed in public in places where they are the only ones who can do so (yes, NYC, Chica

Technically, I agree with you. But just to play the devil's advocate, should a government employee be expected to give up all rights to individual privacy just because they work for the government? Would you say the same of an office worker who found out they were being secretly recorded by their boss?

If we are in an equal position, they have every right to privacy. However, the fact is that in case there is some disagreement that ended up in court, the policeman's word would be believed over mine, because he is a policeman. Therefore, I must insist that he doesn't have a right to privacy, because I must to be able to record the true situation, to record factual evidence that would be believed over the word of a policeman.

Recorded at their desk, sure why not? Is it unheard of for someones desk to be far from a security camera? Heck in retail, food service etc... it's fairly SOP to have a camera that covers the cashiers at the register and many parts of the store. I am absolutely OK with the possibility of being filmed at my desk and anywhere in my job other then the restrooms. Just getting on a computer at work involves clicking a "I understand that everything I do on this computer is subject to monitoring by the company". I

It should never be illegal for me to record my interaction with a law enforcement officer. They are acting as an agent of the state, and the state has no right to privacy at all. It should be encouraged for every citizen to record every interaction they have with law enforcement.

First off, according the article, they're not encouraged to search iPhones whenever interacting with the public, but rather when they arrest somebody. Secondly, it's pretty bad that they posted the home addresses of a bunch of cops. Mind you, I'm all for outing all this BS, but not all cops are bad (although there's certainly a lot that abuse their authority).
And of course, shouldn't the cops want to be recorded if they're not doing anything wrong? On TV, people being arrested often claim bogus police brutality or some such nonsense. In real life, having a bystander recording the situation could help them. Of course, in real life, if they actually are abusing their authority then they do have something to hide. Seems to me any cop that doesn't want themselves to be recorded while performing PUBLIC duties in PUBLIC places isn't confident that they're not going to get in trouble for doing something wrong.

"And of course, shouldn't the cops want to be recorded if they're not doing anything wrong?"

If A, then B.Not B.Therefore not A.

This reminds me of the quote from "American Beauty":

Lester Burnham: Then I guess I'll have to throw in a sexual harassment charge.Brad Dupree: Against who?Lester Burnham: Against YOU. Can you prove that you didn't offer to save my job if I let you blow me?Brad Dupree: Man, you are one twisted fuck.Lester Burnham: Nope; I'm just an ordinary guy who has nothing left to lose.

Can the police prove they didn't beat the suspect.... they could if they had video evidence of them not doing it:)

How have you not noticed that 99.99% of all people are complete and utter retards and blind cattle. They are just a fraction of an inch away from drooling all over themselves for lack of motion control. And you expect them to make educated decisions... an a 100% fake charade that you call "politicans" and "voting".

All tax-payers are bad. As long as we have unjust laws, cops will be charged with enforcing those laws, and tax-payers will be charged with financing those cops. Anyone who finances the enforcement of an unjust law is a bad person. Do you see anything wrong with my reasoning?

First off, according the article, they're not encouraged to search iPhones whenever interacting with the public, but rather when they arrest somebody.

That still seems problematic to me. If I am being arrested for, say, burglary, why should the cops need access to whatever personal data is on my phone? Unless a cop can show some sort of link between the phone and the alleged crime, it seems like a pretty invasive and inappropriate search to me. It's not like the cop is going to get HIV from my phone or anything.

Last I checked, even when you get arrested you have some rights (albeit fewer than a free man). So why would the default assumption be that yo

That still seems problematic to me. If I am being arrested for, say, burglary, why should the cops need access to whatever personal data is on my phone?

If you had an accomplice, it is likely that his name and phone number will be in your phone. Maybe the name and number of your fence. I'd say that there was sufficient probable cause for a warrant to search your phone. After all, they're also going to get a warrant to search your house for stolen property.

Last I checked, even when you get arrested you have some rights (albeit fewer than a free man). So why would the default assumption be that you surrender the right to a private phone when arrested for a crime not involving the phone?

Dunno. Why are you making this assumption? The article talks about preserving potential evidence after an arrest but before the warrant is issued. You'll also lose your wallet and other contents of your

"No, in real life, a recording of the situation will be edited to paint the cops in a bad light. Nobody gains much from releasing a tape of them doing things the right way. There are considerable advantages to selective editing. Like, edit out the abusive drunk throwing a punch or two at the cop, but leave in the cop shoving him up against the car and cuffing him. Sell that to the media, or to the drunk's lawyers who have conveniently filed a police abuse case..."

Why? Cops should have no expectation of privacy because they are public servants serving the public, and they actually are on-call 24/7, so of course they should expect no privacy in their homes, either.

Bullshit. Flat out lie. There is a difference between being on call and being on duty. Police are not paid for 24/7 duty. Period.

No, in real life, a recording of the situation will be edited to paint the cops in a bad light. Nobody gains much from releasing a tape of them doing things the right way. There are considerable advantages to selective editing. Like, edit out the abusive drunk throwing a punch or two at the cop, but leave in the cop shoving him up against the car and cuffing him. Sell that to the media, or to the drunk's lawyers who have conveniently filed a police abuse case...

Except that rarely happens. And in fact, the exactly opposite is considered standard operating procedure. Every day, all across America, video either disappears or is edited with unexplained data loss so as to hide criminal behavior of cops. Inversely, there are tens of thousands unedited videos of police wrong doing readily available on the Internet. The public generally encourag

Bullshit. Flat out lie. There is a difference between being on call and being on duty. Police are not paid for 24/7 duty. Period.

You've never been involved in a disaster response, have you? "What, you're at home with your family and don't want to come help deal with the effects of this tornado? You're 'off duty'? Oh, ok, never mind."

By the way, WHOOSH. What I wrote was SARCASM. I was parroting the nonsense argument about the expectation to privacy to cover the posting of home addresses. I thought I was being over the top enough that it was obvious, then I saw some that exact argument used in other postings, including taping cops in

There is no trust anymore, which in my opinion is killing the fabric of the country. Cops don't trust us; we don't trust them. The government doesn't trust us and we don't trust them. The government looks at us like a vast field of something to be harvested from rather than a collection of individuals, families, and businesses that rely on them to create conditions of security, prosperity, and liberty. Instead we get "you little people", "don't bother me", and "Don't you know who I am?" attitudes among other things. I don't know how to take things back, but it take a paradigm shift I fear.

I don't know what America you are referring to where people trusted each other more than they do now. I can't imagine that there was much trust between cops and blacks in the south before the late 80's, or between immigrant populations in the big cities circa the turn of the century, et cetera...

People are the same now as they have been for thousands of years - give people unchecked authority and corruption will reign. Recording the PUBLIC actions of police officers is a check on such abuse of authority. Imagine if you'd never seen the Rodney King beating. Would YOU have believed him?

Off-topic tangent: Perhaps we should be asking ourselves why we need to rely on the government to create conditions of prosperity for us. I thought the American Dream was that individuals create prosperity for themselves.

Holy smokes. Generalize much? Slashdot needs to get over this paranoid mentality. You guys read some article about something bad happening and all act like it happened to you...every day...for the past 10 years.

"Cops don't trust us; we don't trust them. The government doesn't trust us and we don't trust them. "

That's because they are the servants of the elites, even though they delude themselves otherwise. An honest cop should WANT to be recorded so they'd have PROOF to take to battle. An honest government should CRAVE transparency in order to trumpet its virtue.

Both sides have fear, and it is justified. I wish I knew a way around this, other than perhaps to have more internships for LEO type of work so people know what police have to deal with on a daily basis.

A way around it? Back when you ran Windows 95 and the system was clearly going into the crapper did you keep trying things hoping some silly tweak was going to just "fix it" or did you reach for the reset button?

I say the next killer app is one that streams what you're recording to offsite storage so that it can't be confiscated by smashing your phone/camera. If there's not enough bandwidth it can scale down to sending keyframes and low quality audio and pad out the rest of the video when you stop recording.

Specifically the document warns that an app called Cop Recorder can be activated while the phone is in a suspect's pocket to record what happens during an arrest, then upload the audio to a network server beyond the officer's reach.

The only value I can imagine in preventing their being recorded would be to cover up misdeeds.

Now, if we're talking about a police officer who is undercover, I could imagine circumstances that could preclude recording, but a uniformed or off-duty police officer? Why would someone with so much power be allowed to prevent the recording of the exercise of that authority?

Why? Because every armchair quarterback with 20/20 hind-site will be on you like a pack of flies. Sure we all want to bust the Rodney King beaters, but who can justify every working moment at their jobs when the whole world gets to critique? it degenerates to "OMG! He just sat 4 8 hrs radaring speeders....go catch some real crims!!"

I don't think too many people would find the "armchair quarterback" argument to be a legitimate reason, but that's just me...

Plus, I don't think police recordings would be of much interest to people unless something improper was happening. I certainly don't think people would be recording a copy an officer spending hours catching speeders for the sake of exposing "cop radars speeders" to the world.

I assume your logic goes like this"He deserved the shit kicked out of him. Look at what he did to the cops!!"

My answer - Someone killed a cop, does that give the cop the right to kill them?If so, then just roll up judges and juries, do away with them, and be honest about it.

The police are there to enforce the law.Enforce the law, not dispense justice - that's what judges and juries are supposed to do - and for good reason.

When a cop beats someone, regardless of what the "beatee" did, it is a criminal offense. Sure, lots of police get away with it, or find justification for doing so, but that doesn't change it into something lawful.

Rodney King (or whoever is getting beat today, or right this minute) may have been a thug, but even thugs are subject to a fair trial and justice meted out by a judge and jury. And if the person isn't a thug, and injustice is surely being given - isn't the travesty that much worse?

Context may make someone's bad behavior more UNDERSTANDABLE, but it won't ever justify it.It appears you seem to misunderstand justification and understanding.

The sooner they can get you talking, the sooner you might divulge something they can use. Even if they can't use it, they can ask you the same question again later and if your answer is not exactly the same then your story changed. Once your version can be called into question becauseyou are changing your story (lying), they win.

The sooner they can get you talking, the sooner you might divulge something they can use. Even if they can't use it, they can ask you the same question again later and if your answer is not exactly the same then your story changed. Once your version can be called into question because
you are changing your story (lying), they win.

Wow, I never thought of it. Trying the reverse! Amazing. All dogs are mammals. True, I think... Let's try the reverse. All mammals are dogs. No, that's not right. Guess the first one was wrong as well. My God you've opened my eyes, thank you so much.

The public doesn't have the power the cops have. The public doesn't have a given duty to strip others of their rights - which, incidentally, is largely done when people without said authority do so. So, the public is supposed to be leaving everyone else to their own business, but an on duty cop is supposed to be keeping a small segment of the public from interfering with the lives of the other, larger portion of the public.

Is there an iPhone app that will send recorded video directly to the network? This will be an important feature when recording the police.

Isn't Apple working on some technology to allow movie theaters to remotely disable recording on any iPhone that happens to be in the theater? Yeah. "Movie theaters," that's who they're developing it for. Sure...

...is the document specifically instructing officers, that when they take an iPhone, for any reason, to stick it into a Faraday bag.

The document specifically mentions the "Where's My iPhone" app, which can not only locate the phone, but remotely wipe the phone.

Thereby making it useless for any kind of investigation. And because everything is backed up to iTunes, the owner can just re-sync their phone as soon as they get it back.

Here's an excerpt from the faraday-bags.com website, emphasis mine...

Our line of Black Hole Faraday Bags have been designed to aid police, military, and consultants in the collection, preservation, transport, and analysis of wireless evidence. Wireless devices such as cell phones, GPS, netbooks, bluetooth devices, laptops, etc. are shielded from cellular, WiFi, bluetooth and radio signals when inside of our faraday bags.

Our newest Black Hole bag with a shielded USB 2.0 connection not only offers shielding for seizure and transport but analysis as well. In the past, shielded analysis has been limited to large and expensive enclosures, making shielded analysis in the field nearly impossible. Our Black Hole Data Bag is a truly unique and revolutionary product built to the demands of our customers.

So even if it's inside the bag, they'll be able to slurp it without you or your friends/family being able to wipe it.

Next killer app: One that wipes your data if your phone isn't able to check in for a certain amount of time, or if it's connected via USB when there is no service available. True, most people wouldn't want that as they could accidentally lose something, but for people who legitimately have reason to fear police confiscation of their phone, it could be worth the risk.

I doubt you would accept any argument or proof showing all police officers are rights violating abusers of innocents. You, like a lot of people on this thread assume all police officers are corrupt liars and then base your comments from that starting point.

Not all police officers, but enough of them that the public has reason to want protection for themselves. Funny how the cops' cameras always seem to malfunction when someone claims that they were a victim of police brutality or other abuse. Suddenly they can't retrieve the video from the car's camera. If they can't even keep their damn cameras working properly, they should be thanking us for providing that service for them with our own cameras. If they wish to counter our video evidence, perhaps they sh

I have nothing against anyone recording anything they want. I fail to see why anyone would have a problem with recording anything in that takes place in public. However, I do have a problem when people use unsupported accusations and anecdotal evidence to brand a large group of people as corrupt or dishonest. We tend to use the extremes on both sides of any argument to make a point while disregarding the large number of balanced opinions that actually represent the true will of the majority.

The extremes are often the issue though. The fact that police abuse is known to occur, in extreme cases, is exactly the reason why we need the ability to record the police. Maybe 99% of police interactions are above-board and in accordance with the law. When they aren't, though, the victims need to have the ability to defend themselves.

Given the apparent lack of training and knowledge of the law that has been displayed time and time again by police officers who attempt to prevent recording by citizens, o

Many police cars in US has vehicle front cams, don't they? What they're afraid of I guess is retaliation against their families by gangs

Really, what they're afraid of is evidence of their wrongdoing being used against them.

Think the Rodney King incident [wikipedia.org]. The police were acquitted, though it seems to most that they should have been convicted.

Having their actions recorded by citizens takes some of the power away from the police and puts it in the hands of the citizens -- and police don't like giving up power. THAT is what they're afraid of.

They might claim that they're afraid of retaliation by gangs or something else, but that's not the real reason they don't like being recorded. They don't like being recorded because nobody likes being recorded when these recordings might be used against them later.

A better example is the Robert Dziekaski Taser incident [wikipedia.org], where the cops tasered someone repeatidly for no reason and killed him. Lied about it. Confiscated the evidence to protect themselves. Only that video going public is what finally caused something to be done, because it so enraged the public that the government had no choice but to call an inquiry.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Uh, Class 3 weapons are legal in most of the states when you have a Class 3 License issued by the ATF. You also seem to be missing the width and breadth of what a class 3 license is good for. You can have a belt fed machine gun if that is what gets you going, and you have a ton of money to buy one of the ever shrinking number of them made and registered before 1986. I think the base price for a class 3 weapon is at least 15k now.

Oh what does it really matter. At least you didn't use the made up term "assaul